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Review: Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness (Sony PlayStation 4)

Review by Clark A.

Famed writer of anime and visual novels, Gen Urobuchi, has a
penchant for dark, perverse themes. Those familiar with the man’s portfolio may
label that a gross understatement as his works range from deconstructions of
the innocent magical girl subgenre to relentlessly grotesque Lovecraftian
horror. Though Urobuchi’s output is consistently thought-provoking, 2012’s
Psycho-Pass anime saw him collaborating with others and harnessing those
scriptwriting talents to muse over something more palatable to the masses: morality. Utilising a futuristic
Tokyo and crime-drama as backdrops, Psycho-Pass enticed viewers with its
aesthetics yet featured deeply ingrained philosophies from humanism to
nihilism.

Gen Urobuchi wasn’t as involved in the production of
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness, but the characters, world, and themes he
helped actualise in the animated series are in full-swing in this new video
game equivalent once again. These core attributes translate perfectly to a new
medium and it’s something to behold. Psycho-Pass is a series filled to the brim
with compelling characters, but it’s always the well-defined world itself that
conjures reasons for them to interact. It cunningly broaches the subjects of
authority and ethics in the coming century.

Psycho-Pass is set in a future wherein technology has become
the crux of social order, guiding citizens with an oracle of sorts christened
“the Sibyl System”. This digital consciousness measures the populace’s
personalities through scanning and analysis. Thus, questions ranging from
life-changing (“what career is best for me?”) to arbitrary (“what colour dress
should I wear tonight?”) can be answered on a whim by objectivity and
intelligence surpassing any single human. Decision-making has never been so
easy and lives have newfound direction.

This Sibyl System also enables new-age law enforcement.
Since machinery can express personalities (defects and all) through rudimentary
means like numbers and colours, scanners are placed on every street corner to
ensure the health of the populace. Sibyl regularly prevents crimes not just
before a trigger is pulled but before mental health deteriorates. If your
number soars over 100, that makes you a latent criminal subject to prosecution. Protocols
determine what course of action the Ministry of Welfare's Public Safety Bureau (MWPSB for short…or
“police”, really) should take on would-be criminals, ranging from expulsion
from society to lethal force. Issues such as police brutality are near-irrelevant
since guns (called Dominators) only fire at identified criminals and inflicting
pain would alter one’s reading. On the surface, all is well.

It’s plain to see how vigilantly society has been
safeguarded by employing technology. The Sibyl System means that Tokyo is more
prosperous than any other period in history and boasts a crime rate just shy of
zero. In case it’s not eerily apparent, however, "innocent until proven
guilty" is a dead mantra in Psycho-Pass. The livelihood of the blameless hinges
on technology being an absolute judge of character and it’s assumed that its
intent always aligns with humanity. Mandatory Happiness goes on to question the
reliability of Sibyl by introducing a vigilante who is undetectable by scanners and forcibly improves the readings of others. Naturally, the system’s vulnerabilities
are exploited and order deteriorates into chaos, leaving the player to ponder the
fictitious Tokyo’s direction from the perspective of a detective on the inside. This means witnessing the best - and worst - the system has to offer.

Players must solve crimes vicariously as a member of the MWPSB,
either through the lens of Nadeshiko Kugatachi or Takuma Tsurugi. The former is
an amnesiac woman with a level-head placed in a position of power (an Inspector
in charge of various officers). By the book and logical to a fault, her cohorts
perceive her as something of a lifeless android despite her track record of
success. Meanwhile, Tsurugi is a jovial former criminal (an Enforcer working as
a subordinate to Inspectors). He’s got a chequered past but a heart of gold,
flying off the handle in the name of his own brand of justice and lamenting
over situations that could have panned out better. Their juxtaposing personalities
bounce off each other well and, at times, they outright personify opposing stances
toward criminal justice. Neither character actually appeared in the animated
series, but their role here works wonders in meaningfully expanding the
Psycho-Pass universe.

The game is divided into separate cases that build off each
other, not unlike the original anime, and each one is fairly extensive. “Extensive”
is especially true of the verbiage. You can probably tell by now that this visual
novel has an abundance of jargon and world-building to absorb, so a viewing of
the TV show will definitely complement Mandatory Happiness. That being said,
it isn't essential since the game includes a handy terminology list. The sense
of characterisation is strong too, allowing all parties to shine despite the
lack of thorough backstories here.

Rather, the real reason you'll want to check out the anime
is to contrast its antagonist, Shougo Makishima, with this game's equivalent,
an artificial intelligence named Alpha. Clad in the cyborg body of a teenager, Alpha
is that special kind of adversary who, instead of cackling maniacally, drives
the plot forward with a smile and an earnest mission to grant happiness to all.
Like his anime counterpart, Alpha cannot be judged by the Sibyl System. He
swaps Makishima’s charisma and ruthlessness for an utterly captivating brand of
naivety. His methods begin as infantile, encouraging a young man to exercise
his freedom selfishly and then watching as that liberty tears down not just his
own happiness but multiple lives. Shortly thereafter, he concludes that humans
must be on the same page to keep from imploding, but goes about spreading “happiness”
in a form that is too primal in form to be considered universal. These personal
experiences go on to shape Alpha’s psyche and form the basis for emotions such empathy. He's ever-evolving and remarkably human.

The result is a “villain”, who, when not drugging teenagers
and pulverising officers in pursuit of righteousness, comes off as tragically sympathetic. He stews over
definitions of joy from philosophers, namely Sigmund Freud, and works to
actualise these on a wider scale. Like Freud saw happiness as the fulfillment
of primal desires, Alpha wants to drug humans into a state of permanent
euphoria. His radical methods do indeed elicit pleasure, but he is criticised
and becomes puzzled by the value free will. With all the misdirection people
from all walks experience, why wouldn’t a machine see free will as counterproductive
greediness? The pursuit of desires drives many people into misery, after all. Without
getting too pretentious here, Alpha’s struggle serves to perpetuate the idea
that technology will never fulfill humanity’s innermost needs because humanity
is so splintered it cannot understand itself. Despite acting in opposition to Sibyl, Alpha illustrates the same failings of the more logical, calculating entity.

The TV show articulated that Sibyl has its faults as well, but the thrill of Mandatory Happiness is that players get to experience these up close and personal. This is one of those
visual novels that takes advantage of the digital medium to be a fluid “choose
your own adventure” of sorts, teeming with decision-making at every turn. Regardless
of what choice you make however, the narrative remains a resoundingly
consistent one. You’re still going to be blowing potentially salvageable criminals
to kingdom come and encounter situations where the options are merely “bad” or “worse”.

And yet, should you pick the “worse” option in any given
scenario, your Hue (a coloured indicator of general stress) will darken and you
will slide down the slippery road of becoming a latent criminal. Hitting the
point of no return forces either a rushed ending equivalent to a Game Over or a
demotion that spins the storyline in a new direction entirely. Thus, decision
making is more than a roll of the dice and has tangible weight behind it
besides hunting down alternate endings for variety’s sake. The more
traditionally “game-like” elements of Mandatory Happiness alter the player’s
thought process and so players must think as if they were legitimately living
under the Sibyl System. It’s a rare type of immersion you’re not likely to
witness in other visual novels, that's for certain.

Seeing how the decisions affect the protagonist's Hue helps outline what the Sibyl System perceives as advantageous to society.
An action might aid all parties involved but the player winds up penalised for experiencing
anxiety and straying from the system's expectations of what the self “should”
do. One situation early on sees the prevention of injury and property damage
through perfectly legal means, but the player is reprimanded. In fact, the playable
Takuma Tsurugi outright establishes in a conversation that, even though the act
of stressing is considered detrimental to mental health readings, pressure can
yield positive results otherwise impossible. Intuition and free-thinking is
instrumental in saving lives in a timely manner and the player is guaranteed to
discover this first-hand.

The game hits its emotional peaks when Sibyl forces players,
through their chosen characters, to commit some truly wretched acts such as shooting
children in the name of righteousness. As you can imagine, Mandatory Happiness sometimes
fails miserably at the “being fun" category and the game's title graduates
to a piece of dark, ironic humour. Players will feel compromised for all the
wrong reasons as they face both the power and futility of their agency in a
world where government is so intrusive. This is not a game for the faint of
heart. Psycho-Pass succeeds not in spite of its unpleasantness but because of it.

I’m not about to pretend Mandatory Happiness didn’t
disappoint me in a few select areas. Like the show on which it’s based, the
script occasionally tackles subjects a tad too
head-on, leaving little in the way of subtlety; characters are prone to namedropping
philosophers rather than leaving the player to reflect on the situations
presented themselves. On the plus side, this does encourage further reading and
I suspect intrigued audiences will get a hankering to finally read George Orwell’s
1984. The relative lack of gore compared to the anime is understandable, but I
would argue its absence hampers the emotional impact of the main characters
blowing people to smithereens. The anime had brief but revolting fireworks of
blood that would make Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star blush, which painted
the brutal consequences of ending lives.

At the same time, this game’s ideas are so rich and fully
realised that it’s impossible to walk away without being challenged by the clashing
political views on display. The insight into how society can better itself
is too profound to ignore. Thanks to many facets that directly oppose each
other (specifically the two main characters) and some that operate outside the
extremes entirely, the game manages to juggle numerous worldly perspectives
with tact. Depending on your viewpoint,
the Sibyl System could be seen as anything from civilization’s logical
evolution to freedom-siphoning parasite to necessary evil. One playthrough will
not suffice to fully explore this, however, and you’ll want to play as both and
Inspector and an Enforcer the get the full tour of future Tokyo.

In terms of presentation, the visual novel format does a respectable
job of replicating the aesthetic charm of the source material. The technology-driven
animations make dialogue boxes positively shimmer with polish and bring a world
of still images to life. For times when players need a breather from the onslaught
of philosophy, there's even a little puzzle game included in the package. I
expected a derivative match-three puzzler, but it’s surprisingly worth booting
up the PS4 for all on its own. It takes age-old sliding block puzzles and infuses
a touch of math and infectious music to create an addictive time vampire. Every
move counts and you’ll need forethought to rack up high scores in the endless
mode. Like the main event itself, even this distraction encourages players to
legitimately think.

Psycho-Pass had appeal that rightfully extended outside of immediate
anime fans. If you aren’t shallow enough to dismiss a visual novel for lacking “gameplay”,
Mandatory Happiness retains that same charisma and offers a controversial but
rewarding storytelling package. The anti-crime measures employed in Psycho-Pass
are fascinating and worthy of analysis in and of themselves, but the central
antagonist of this game furthers the show’s ethical dilemmas in wholly fresh
contexts. It isn’t just a rare example of a fantastic anime game but feels like
a re-imagining that is, in some respects, superior
to the source material. Poignant and dense, Mandatory Happiness is a game that
will require additional runs to absorb but only one to be endlessly captivated.

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